Media outlets access enhanced multi-platform content at no charge, with alerts when we have new content on issues or from regions you may select. Once we receive the filled out form below, you'll receive a message with the passcode/s. Welcome!

*These fields are required

*Media Outlet name

*Media Outlet City/State

Contact name

Contact phone

*Email address or fax #

*Media Outlet type

Additional (beyond the state you are located in) content that you would like to receive

Newscasts

PNS Daily Newscast - March 21, 2019

The nation’s acting Defense Secretary is under investigation for promoting Boeing, his former employer. Also on the Thursday rundown: The Trump administration’s spending blueprint being called a “bully budget.” Plus, a call for the feds to protect consumers from abusive lenders.

Trump Faces Opposition in Florida Over Offshore Drilling

The Trump administration's plan to expand offshore drilling was met with immediate concern from environmental groups that say it poses risks to coastal communities. (Pixabay)

January 5, 2018

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Even President Donald Trump's close friend and ally, Gov. Rick Scott, is opposing the administrations plans to open new stretches of federal waters to oil and gas drilling, including off the coast of Florida.

In a statement, Scott said he requested a meeting with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke because such a plan would negatively impact Florida's natural resources.

Steve Mashuda, the managing attorney of the oceans program at Earthjustice, says Florida simply has too much to lose.

"We're putting at risk a thriving fishing industry," he warns. "We're putting at risk a booming and absolutely necessary tourist industry. We're putting at risk the most fragile and most productive waters off the East Coast in our nation. It's just not worth the price."

Twelve leases are nominated for the Gulf of Mexico. Zinke said he will discuss the matter with Scott, but for now, there will be no drilling lease sales in the eastern Gulf until 2023.

Residents, environmental groups and small-business owners who call Florida home say there is simply no place for oil drilling in the Sunshine State.

Bill Hamilton, who owns and runs a garden center in St. Augustine, says it's time the administration looks toward the future instead of the past.

"We're at the point in the history of the world that we need to move away from fossil fuels, and to use any resources to look for new supplies of fossil fuels is not well thought out," he explains. "It's not being well considered."

The Interior Department said the five-year-proposal, which would allow leasing federal waters in the Arctic, as well as the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, would not move forward without state, community and congressional feedback, but Zinke has not said whether states would have the power to veto drilling off their own shores.